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Category: UK news

  • UK aid to India does little for human rights and democracy, watchdog finds

    Programme spent £2.7bn between 2016 and 2021 but is fragmented and lacks a clear rationale, report says

    Britain’s aid programme to India is fragmented, lacks a clear rationale and does little to counter the negative trends in human rights and democracy in the country, the government’s aid watchdog has found.

    The findings are likely to be used by those who claim the UK government risks using its aid programme to deepen its relationship with India, including seeking free trade deals, rather than attempting to reduce poverty, which is the statutory purpose of UK aid.

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  • The Guardian view on refugee rights: a warning from history | Editorial

    Rishi Sunak’s pretence of serious statecraft is belied by his embrace of shabby populism when it comes to immigration law

    Britain did not sign up to the 1951 United Nations refugee convention by accident, nor was the country bamboozled into the European convention on human rights and cooperation with the Strasbourg court that enforces the convention. It was an architect of those institutions.

    The ambition was to lay solid foundations of European cooperation for the establishment of a peaceful democratic order after the second world war. Winston Churchill was a leading advocate of that project.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • What are the legal obstacles faced by the UK’s illegal migration bill?

    Suella Braverman has denied the government is breaking the law but experts say it faces many challenges

    A major piece of legislation unveiled this week seeks to achieve nothing less than the holy grail of current immigration policy: making asylum claims inadmissible from those who travel to the UK on small boats.

    The illegal migration bill, to give its provisional title, would involve a duty placed on the home secretary to remove “as soon as reasonably practicable”, to Rwanda or a “safe third country”, anyone who arrives on a small boat. Those who arrive will also be prevented from ever claiming asylum in the UK.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Brexit trade treaty ‘could be terminated’ if UK quits ECHR over small boat crossings

    Legal experts say Brussels has right to take retaliatory action, making cross-border law enforcement harder

    The UK’s trade agreement with the EU could be immediately terminated if the British government quits the European convention on human rights (EHCR) over the issue of stopping small boat crossings across the Channel, legal experts have said.

    Under the 2020 trade and cooperation agreement (TCA), the EU has the right to take retaliatory action including the ending of the hard-fought agreements on extradition and access to the database of biometric data including fingerprints and DNA, said Steve Peers, a professor of EU and human rights law.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Illegal migration bill will hurt women trafficked to UK, Starmer tells PM

    Labour leader attacks plans, but Rishi Sunak calls Starmer ‘just another lefty lawyer standing in our way’

    Rishi Sunak’s plan to stop small boat crossings will “drive a coach and horses” through protections for women who are trafficked to Britain as victims of modern slavery, Keir Starmer has said.

    The Labour leader made the warning to coincide with International Women’s Day, as he labelled new legislation to tackle illegal migration a “gimmick” and warned it was likely to lead to yet another broken promise.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Ella Baron on the Sunak and Braverman plan for small boats — cartoon

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • What does the UK’s small boats plan mean for relations with France?

    Emmanuel Macron and Rishi Sunak meet on Friday with the UK’s new bill high on the agenda

    Emmanuel Macron and Rishi Sunak meet in Paris on Friday for the first bilateral summit between France and Britain since 2018. High on the agenda will be the longstanding row over small boats crossing the Channel, given new impetus by the plan to tackle the issue announced by the UK on Tuesday.

    What’s the state of Anglo-French relations?

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  • What does the UK government’s bill on illegal migration propose?

    Ministers say the bill will stop people crossing the Channel in small boats but critics say the plans are unworkable

    In 2022, 45,755 men, women and children crossed the Channel in small boats to reach the UK, most of whom then claimed asylum. Nearly 3,000 people have already made the crossing this year, with official estimates expecting more than 80,000 this year.

    Rishi Sunak has promised to end the small boats once and for all, by introducing the illegal migration bill. Critics including former Tory ministers have claimed it is doomed to be halted by challenges in the EU courts and will be used as an issue to attack Labour in a general election campaign.

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  • Suella Braverman: small boats plan will push boundaries of international law

    Rishi Sunak says bill will ‘take back control of our borders’ but critics argue the proposals are unworkable

    Suella Braverman has admitted the government is attempting to push “the boundaries of international law” with legislation aimed at reducing small boat crossings in the Channel.

    The law, to be disclosed to MPs at lunchtime on Tuesday, is expected to place a legal duty on the home secretary to detain and remove nearly all asylum seekers who arrive “irregularly” such as via small boats in the Channel.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Anti-strike bill ‘fails to meet UK’s human rights obligations’, MPs and peers say

    Joint committee warns that proposed laws are ‘not justified and need to be reconsidered’

    Controversial legislation designed to curb strike action fails to meet the UK’s human rights obligations, MPs and peers have warned.

    The joint committee on human rights has said the government’s proposed anti-strike laws are “not justified and need to be reconsidered”.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Rishi Sunak to launch bill to stop people arriving on small boats claiming asylum

    Law would also place duty on home secretary to send anyone who arrives on small boat in UK to Rwanda or another country

    Rishi Sunak is to announce new laws stopping people entering the UK on small boats from claiming asylum, with the prime minister saying: “Make no mistake, if you come here illegally, you will not to be able to stay.”

    The prime minister and his home secretary will launch the legislation this week, as part of the government’s drive to “tackle illegal migration”, one of its main priorities.

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  • Living in Britain, fighting for rights in Iran: ‘the lives that are lost are not in vain’ – video

    Haleh, an Iranian woman who has lived in Britain since the age of 15, says ‘our lives have changed forever’ after the brutal murder of a young woman in Tehran last September. Mahsa Amini was arrested by the Iranian morality police for wearing her hijab ‘improperly’, but collapsed and died in custody a few days later. Her death sparked huge international outrage and protest. In the UK, the Iranian community continues to turn out weekly to show solidarity with the movement in Iran, spearheaded by women and teenagers, demanding fundamental rights for women and pushing for a change in Iranian leadership. We join part of the British movement, an activist group called United4Mahsa, to see how members are showing support and spreading awareness about the situation in Iran

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Maintenance failures sparked Heathrow detention centre disturbances, FoI reveals

    Freedom of information responses reveal damning findings of internal investigations into power cuts at Harmondsworth in 2022

    A catalogue of maintenance failures over more than a decade caused power cuts that triggered disturbances at Europe’s largest immigration detention centre last year, the Guardian has learned.

    The disturbances at Harmondsworth, the 676-bed centre near Heathrow, led to elite prison squads and the Metropolitan police being called to the scene to quell the protest. As a result of the power failure the centre had to be closed for several weeks and detainees relocated to other detention centres and prisons around the UK.

    No evidence of maintenance of air circuit breakers since installation and one had been tripping multiple times since June 2022

    Some equipment still at risk of failure because it is obsolete and no longer manufactured

    Switching strategy on some equipment not operational since 2008/9

    Excessive heat buildup in the electrical switch room

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Campaigners hail law raising age of marriage to 18 in England and Wales

    Now illegal for 16- and 17-year-olds to marry or enter a civil partnership, even with parental consent

    Campaigners have hailed a new law raising the legal age of marriage in England and Wales as a significant milestone in child protection.

    The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act comes into force on Monday following a five-year campaign and will prevent 16- and 17-year-olds from marrying or entering a civil partnership, even if they have parental consent.

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  • The real scandal of the Shamima Begum citizenship case | Letters

    Former supreme court justice Jonathan Sumption on last week’s ruling on the home secretary’s decision to deprive Begum of her citizenship. Plus letters from Ilina Todorovska, Owen Stewart, Andrew Snowdon and Carmel Bedford

    Prof Conor Gearty complains about the special immigration appeals commission’s “deference” to the government in its judgment on Shamima Begum (Shamima Begum has shown up courts’ deference to this government. It’s a worrying new era, 23 February). Decisions on deprivation of citizenship are required by statute to be made by the home secretary. The commission’s job was therefore to decide whether the home secretary’s decision was properly made, not whether it agreed with it. That is what it did. In a democracy governed by the rule of law, Prof Gearty should not have been surprised.

    Meanwhile, his analysis distracts attention from the real scandal. By statute, the home secretary cannot deprive a person of British citizenship if it would render them stateless. The person must have citizenship of at least one other country. When the decision was made, in 2019, Ms Begum was 19. She was a citizen of Bangladesh, but only in the most technical sense. She had provisional citizenship until she was 21, when it would lapse unless she took it up. This was because her parents were born there. But she has never been to Bangladesh. She has no links with the country. And Bangladesh has disowned her. Her Bangladeshi citizenship always was a legal fiction. Today, it is not even that. She is 23. As a result of the home secretary’s decision, she is stuck in a camp in Syria, with no citizenship anywhere and no prospect of one. Children who make a terrible mistake are surely redeemable. But statelessness is for ever.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Shamima Begum has shown up courts’ deference to this government. It’s a worrying new era | Conor Gearty

    Issues related to national security have always been hard to crack, but judges are unwilling to consider human rights

    Are the courts reverting to type? Until quite recently, it was widely assumed that the last people to look to for protection from the state were the judges. The Irish knew this, so too did union officials, leftwing campaigners and civil libertarian activists. Progress on racial and gender equality was achieved despite judges, not because of them.

    Then along came the 1998 Human Rights Act and the flourishing of a new generation of abrasively liberal judges, men and women not afraid to impose their will on the executive where the law demanded it, undaunted by “enemy of the people” jibes. The Human Rights Act survives in law, it is true – but what of its spirit?

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Low uptake for free UK voter ID scheme among elderly and young people

    Statistics suggest many older and younger people could be disenfranchised at England’s May local elections

    Huge numbers of older voters could be disenfranchised at local elections in May after official data has shown that only 505 people aged 75-plus have applied for free voter identification documents in the month since the scheme launched.

    Statistics for the numbers who have applied since the system opened on 16 January also showed that fewer than 6% of those seeking the document were aged under 25, another group seen as disproportionately likely to lack the necessary ID.

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  • Labour explores plan to make clean air a human right with new legislation

    Shadow justice secretary Steve Reed will criticise ministers’ attempts to repeal Human Rights Act

    A new wave of human rights legislation to guarantee clean air quality and nutrition could be rolled out by the next Labour government, under plans announced by the shadow justice secretary on Friday.

    Steve Reed will vow to fight “tooth and nail” against any attempt by the government to repeal the Human Rights Act, and instead look to roll out the “next frontier” of “fundamental freedoms”.

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  • US ranking on abuse of power index hurt by inequality and violence

    Country came near median of 163 countries on Index of Impunity, higher than Hungary and Singapore

    The US scores surprisingly badly in a new ranking system charting abuses of power by nation states, launched by a group co-chaired by former UK foreign secretary David Miliband.

    The US comes close to the median of 163 countries ranked in the Index of Impunity, reflecting a poor record on discrimination, inequality and access to democracy. The country’s arms exports and record of violence are an even bigger negative factor.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Chagos islanders must get full reparations for forced exile, says NGO

    Human Rights Watch also demands trial for ‘appalling colonial crime’ of expulsion – and continuing ill treatment – of Chagossians

    The UK should pay full and unconditional reparations to generations affected by its forcible displacement of Chagos Islands inhabitants in the 1960s and 70s, an action that constituted a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch has said.

    The NGO said that individuals should be put on trial for the expulsion of Chagossians when the UK retained possession of what it refers to as British Indian Ocean Territory, or BIOT, after Mauritius gained independence in 1968.

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  • Manchester United fans, let’s fight takeover by Qatar | Letter

    Kathryn Fletcher says United and City fans should pull together in protest against the sportswashing of human rights abuses in the UAE and Qatar

    Your article (Manchester United Q&A: could Qatari investors realistically buy the club?, 8 February) addresses questions surrounding the possible takeover of Manchester United by Qatar. It focuses on the Uefa ownership rules as a potential stumbling block, but ignores human rights (the very issue featured in the photo accompanying the article, which shows a supporter holding up a sign saying “No to Qatar – Human Rights Matter”). As a season ticket holder who is an active member of Amnesty International, I am more concerned about my club being used to further sportswash human rights abuses. These are now well known following the World Cup exposure.

    I call on concerned Manchester United fans to join the Manchester Amnesty group to campaign against this takeover. We would also love to hear from Manchester City fans unhappy about the appalling human rights abuses in the United Arab Emirates. To those who love football but hate the murky side: let’s come together. A city united!
    Kathryn Fletcher
    Manchester

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Suella Braverman’s Rwanda flight ‘dream’ could happen this year, sources say

    Home secretary reportedly believes European court of human rights will rule on policy by end of 2023

    Suella Braverman’s “dream” of flying refugees to Rwanda could be realised by the end of the year and before the next election, government sources have said.

    The home secretary believes that “with a fair wind” the European court of human rights in Strasburg could rule on the controversial policy by the end of 2023 and is unlikely to overturn UK court rulings.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Liz Truss says it is ‘unfair’ to blame her mini-budget for interest rate hike and rules out being PM again – as it happened

    UK’s shortest-serving prime minister says she ‘learned a lot’ from time in government but does not want top job again. This live blog is now closed

    Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, has also criticised ministers again for refusing to engage in meaningful talks on pay. She told PA Media this morning:

    This government has not at any time in this dispute come to the table about the substantive issue on pay, and that is the real issue. There isn’t going to be any other way to end this dispute until they come to the table and talk about pay.

    They said on many occasions that they’re in constructive talks; first of all, I don’t know what those constructive talks are – they are certainly not on pay.

    Nobody wants to see these strikes, nobody wants to be on strike – the last thing nurses want to do is to be on strike.

    What they do want is a government that can show leadership, get around the negotiating table and settle this dispute.

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  • Sunak ‘plans to stop deportation appeals’ for people who reach UK in small boats

    Home Office reportedly proposed two options to try to prevent those crossing Channel from claiming asylum

    Rishi Sunak is proposing to stop asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats from appealing against their deportation, according to reports.

    The Home Office, led by Suella Braverman, had put forward two options for the prime minister’s consideration as he attempts to automatically prevent those arriving in Britain from claiming asylum, the Times reported.

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  • The Guardian view on Brexit’s unsound legal thinking: turning back the clock | Editorial

    Ministers want Britain’s judges to interpret human rights not in the light of present day conditions, but those of the 1950s

    The government “should not proceed” with its bill of rights. That was the withering judgment delivered last week on Dominic Raab’s proposals by parliament’s joint committee on human rights. MPs and peers assessed the bill and correctly decided that the ideal outcome for the country was to drop the deeply flawed legislation. It’s not a bill of rights so much as a bill of wrongs. The cross-party committee said the justice secretary’s proposals would reduce the protections currently provided, make it harder to enforce human rights, and show contempt for international obligations.

    The Conservative party in its present guise is determined to free the executive from accountability, and Mr Raab’s ideas are part of a power grab that includes attempts to restrict judicial review, the right of protest and freedom of expression. Making his bill law would see Britain turn its back on the gains made by human rights legislation. Major advances made by disabled people, same‐sex couples and Windrush victims would never have occurred under these proposals.

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  • Lords can stop police getting pre-emptive protest ban rights, Green peer says

    Labour must whip its benches to vote against controversial proposed powers, says Jenny Jones

    Controversial proposed powers for police to pre-emptively ban protests believed likely to cause “serious disruption” could be killed in the House of Lords if Labour whips its benches to vote against them, the Green peer Jenny Jones has said.

    The powers, described as “a blank cheque to shut down dissent”, were introduced by the government this month in late amendments to a public order bill that already includes a series of anti-protest measures.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Rishi Sunak told to ditch plans to overhaul human rights laws

    MPs and peers say bill will damage people’s ability to enforce rights and harm UK’s international reputation

    Rishi Sunak is being urged to abandon the government’s controversial attempt to overhaul human rights legislation after a warning that the bill of rights appears to “tip the balance” in favour of the state and seriously damages people’s ability to enforce their rights.

    A cross-party committee of MPs and peers said the bill, which would replace the Human Rights Act, which enshrines the European convention on human rights in the UK, showed a “disregard” for the UK’s international legal obligations and would lead to more cases going to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.

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  • Family of executed British-Iranian national ‘prevented from seeing body’

    Alireza Akbari’s sister and daughter went to cemetery to collect his remains but were told he had already been interred

    The Tehran-based family of the executed British-Iranian dual national Alireza Akbari have been prevented from seeing his body or burying him in the grave in which he had asked to be laid to rest in Shiraz, his birthplace, family members have told the Guardian.

    Akbari was executed for spying for M16, charges he vehemently denied and for which there is no substantive evidence, save a confession extracted under torture.

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  • Economic, social and cultural rights must be enshrined in UK law | Letter

    A new report has found that our basic human rights are not being upheld by the British government, says Jess McQuail

    This week UK government representatives will meet world and business leaders at Davos to talk a big game on inequality. Yet at the same time, a new report from more than 70 civil society organisations across England and Wales has found that our basic human rights at home are in crisis.

    Over the last six months, the UK human rights organisation Just Fair has been accepting evidence from organisations on the front line of the cost-of-living crisis for a report to the United Nations on rights in the UK. The evidence is damning, and points to a government falling short in many areas and for too many people.

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  • UK looks clumsy and powerless in wake of Iran’s execution of Alireza Akbari

    Culturally insulting language used by Rishi Sunak and James Cleverly will increase tension between the two countries

    Britain’s relationship with Iran has a fraught, unedifying history, dating back to the 18th-century imperial tussle between England, Napoleonic France, and tsarist Russia for control of Persia. Iranians have long memories. To this day, they blame the UK for many of their woes.

    Britain invaded in 1941 to limit Nazi influence and protect the Anglo-Persian company’s oilfields. In 1953 it intervened again, mounting a coup, with US help, to overthrow a democratically elected government and bolster the rule of the autocratic, pro-western shah.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.